Yasukuni shrine is one of the most touristed spots in Tokyo. Next to the Emperor's Palace in the centre of town, it is an easy addition to an otherwise normal walk around. But it is also a major point of contention. It enshrines war criminals, and is owned by a far right nationalist organization who deny fundamental atrocities committed in WW2.
24 August 2019
SciShow Psych: Spelunking in the Uncanny Valley
With all the CGI cat-humans going around on the internet these days, it’s hard to deny the sense of yikes known as the uncanny valley. But what exactly is this phenomenon, and why do we feel it when we do?
The Guardian: A new poll shows what really interests 'pro-lifers': controlling women
Do men make better political leaders than women? More than half of anti-abortion voters agreed. Do you want there to be equal numbers of men and women in positions of power in America? Fewer than half of abortion opponents said yes – compared with 80% of pro-choicers, who said they want women to share in power equally.
Anti-abortion voters don’t like the #MeToo movement. They don’t think the lack of women in positions of power impacts women’s equality. They don’t think access to birth control impacts women’s equality. They don’t think the way women are treated in society is an important issue in the 2020 election. [...]
But evangelicals didn’t seem to think much about abortion until an earlier pet issue, racial segregation, began to fall out of favor. Around the same time, women’s social roles were rapidly changing. The birth control pill brought with it an avalanche of opportunities and freedoms, and women, finally fully able to have sex for fun and prevent pregnancy, took full advantage. The ability to delay a pregnancy – and later, the ability to legally end one – meant that women didn’t have to choose between romance and ambition (and it meant women could be choosier about romance, making a more considered decision about who and whether to marry). [...]
Women, according to more than three-quarters of anti-abortion survey respondents, “are too easily offended”. More than 70% of “pro-lifers” in the survey agree that women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist – women, in other words, are a touch hysterical and perhaps not to be trusted. While 82% of pro-choice respondents said that the country would be better off with more women in political office, just 34% of abortion opponents agreed.
The Guardian: 'People have had enough': Mexican town that lynched alleged kidnappers
The lynchings, which took place in the Mexican state of Puebla on 7 August, were the latest expression of a regional malady blighting countries from Bolivia to Brazil, whose far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, recently declared criminals should “die in the streets like cockroaches”.
Most weeks Latin American newspapers feature chilling tales of mob justice, often committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens and increasingly coordinated on social media and filmed on smartphones. In one recent case in the Brazilian Amazon, vigilantes smashed their way into a police station with sledgehammers in search of a suspected killer, before hacking him to death with machetes and scythes.
But Mexico, which last year registered a record 35,964 murders and where only a tiny fraction of crimes are solved, has been particularly affected.
The number of lynchings almost tripled here last year, jumping from 60 incidents in 2017 to 174 – 58 of which resulted in deaths. In the first half of this year that trend has continued with security expert Eduardo Guerrero counting at least 42 killings.
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